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Gun range proposal fails with Orlando looming in background

Luke Hefner fires a pistol at On Target shooting range last year. The Sweeten Creek business is one of the few gun ranges in Buncombe County and isn't big enough for rifles.(Photo: Angeli Wright/awright@citizen-ti)Buy Photo

The nation's worst mass shooting served as an emotional backdrop to a Buncombe County debate Tuesday about whether to transfer tax dollars designated for the arts to the construction of a public gun range.

The proposal made at a regular Board of Commissioners meeting brought out vocal gun control advocates, one of whom board Chairman David Gantt threatened to eject after an outburst.

Commissioners voted down the proposal by Republican District 2 Commissioner Mike Fryar, of Fairview, 4-3, along party lines.

Using arts money to build a gun range in the Democrat majority county would likely have always been a hard sell, but with the June 12 Orlando nightclub shooting still fresh in people's minds, the proposal seemed doomed.

"I find it extremely obscene that we would even be talking about this in the light of what’s been happening," said Susan Dupree, who said she recently moved to East Asheville from central Florida near Orlando.

Dupree was one of more than a dozen women who came to the meeting wearing pink and orange to protest the shooting range. She shouted out when Fryar was explaining his proposal and trying to distance it from gun violence. That drew the eviction warning from Gantt.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I will not have any outbursts here," the chairman said, banging the gavel.

When she took her turn to speak Dupree apologized, saying she has gay family members and has found the past week "extremely traumatic." The shooter in the gay club who said he was motivated by a radical Islamic group killed 49 and wounded 53.

Fryar wanted to transfer $500,000 designated for the Asheville Arts Museum to a public range. There are a few private ranges in the county, but they are too small for rifles or are expensive, the GOP commissioner said.

He characterized the move as a way to cut off a nonprofit that has gotten millions in taxpayer dollars and put that money toward something for locals who have asked him for a shooting facility.

"People in this county say, we would just like a place to go and sight our guns then go hunting," he said.

He and fellow Republican Joe Belcher, a District 3 commissioner from Candler, said a range would actually improve safety in the county and lessen nuisance complaints stemming from people shooting on private property.

One gun rights advocate who spoke, Fremont Brown, of Asheville, said a range would help people learn to defend themselves and cut down on crime.

"What we need are ... people who are proficient and can hit what they’re shooting at," said Brown, who also said, "We cannot carry a cop on our back everywhere we go."

Fryar said mass shootings shouldn't be part of the debate. He described the 2012 Sandyhook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut in which Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children as "terrible."

"But that man was mentally ill, and he took his mother’s gun and killed her," the commissioner said. He added he "really felt sorry" for the Orlando victims but also felt sorry for 69 people shot over the Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, a city with famously tough gun laws.

Gun control advocates and some commissioners, though, continued to say the proposal should not have happened now.

"This is really poorly, poorly timed," said Democratic District 1 Commissioner Holly Jones, of Montford. "I ache for the people that this touches too close to home. I’m sorry for that pain and angst that has been put upon you."

Others argued taxpayers shouldn't foot the bill for something private businesses could provide and said it would be too much trouble to find a site. The county on Aug. 19 plans to open a $6 million Woodfin indoor shooting range for law enforcement officers. Officials tried unsuccessfully for two years to find an outdoor site that didn't draw neighbor protests. County officials chose not to allow the public to shoot in the range, citing maintenance and liability issues.

Fryar said the North Carolina Wildlife Commission has offered $500,000 to help pay for construction. The commission would design, build and even run the range, he said. A similar partnership in Cleveland County has produced a public shooting range that makes $1,000-$1,600 a day, he said.

The wildlife commission had hoped to site a range on county property near the landfill but struck rock, he said. Fryar said he was confident there was some place in the county that would work.